


Seen Seeing

by apliddell



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, M/M, Serpent Crowley, crowley gets hetero baited, grandma aziraphale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2019-11-19
Packaged: 2021-02-13 13:17:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21494923
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/apliddell/pseuds/apliddell
Summary: Aziraphale has another friend?! Crowley gets sneaky and regrets it and then doesn't regret it.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 34
Kudos: 428





	Seen Seeing

**Author's Note:**

> Seen seeing is an expression my partner and I use to describe the awkward moment of eye contact when someone catches you looking at them on the sly.

The door had been locked. The shop was shut, and the door had been locked and that was that. Still Crowley had a very friendly relationship with the front door of Aziraphale’s bookshop--the backdoor was another matter--and anyway he wasn’t a  _ customer _ . Sometimes when Crowley startled Aziraphale, his form would get a bit rattled and he’d grow an extra thousand eyes and a few dozen wings, and. Crowley really enjoyed that. So when he saw that Aziraphale was neither behind the front desk nor on the floor, Crowley flirted with the front door, threatened the little jingly bell above the jamb, and slinked in. 

There was something  _ allegre _ playing on Aziraphale’s ancient gramophone, and in the quiet places in the music, Crowley could hear the sound of an unfamiliar voice somewhere at the back of the shop. Crowley couldn’t make out what was being said, but it seemed to be a feminine voice, and there was a note of distress in it. Aziraphale’s voice chimed in consolingly. Something about the gentleness of his murmured reply made Crowley feel quite dragonish. He was embarrassed of the feeling, but that wasn’t quite enough to banish it. 

Crowley crept a bit closer, trying to conceal himself behind bookshelves, but found that since Aziraphale and his companion seemed to be in the little sitting room area, he had no way to approach near enough to see without being seen. At which point, he ought to have made his presence known and offered to withdraw. Crowley was perhaps not very good with ought tos, and what he actually did was shift into his serpent form and creep along the walls, hoping to be inconspicuous. 

“-you’ve done right, my dear, truly you have,” Aziraphale was patting his companion’s shoulder as she reached under a pair of over-sized spectacles to dab at her streaming brown eyes, “It will be for the best in the end. You’ll see.”

“Oh I know I know,” she sniffled. “I just want to skip over this miserable bit and get to that for the best in the end bit.” 

Aziraphale smiled sympathetically, “But this bit has got chocolate sponge cake in it!” He pushed a little plate holding a fat wedge of cake toward her. 

“There’s that,” said the woman, smiling weakly and digging a fork into the cake. 

“Oh and have you had your essay handed back yet? How did that go?”

The woman pulled a face, “My professor’s making me rewrite it. He said _Lacuna_ _Futura _has been out of print for over a century, and the only known copy in Britain is in the hands of a private collector, so I’d obviously faked my citations and I was lucky he isn't having me thrown out of the university for plagiarism!” 

Aziraphale puffed up with outrage, “The book I lent you?” 

“Lent is a strong word, “ said the woman quietly and had a bite of cake. 

“Well,” Aziraphale seemed to be steeling himself. “If you. If it would be useful to you, you can just take the book in to your professor and show it to him.”

The woman brightened at once, “Really? You’re going to let me take it out of the shop?”

“Can you bring it back in a day?” 

“Yes, definitely! Oh my god, you’ve saved me so much trouble; I was going to have to rework my entire th-” she stopped because her eyes had just landed on Crowley, “Mr Fell, erm. Do you have a pet?” 

“No,” said Aziraphale, looking round, “Why do you a-oh.” He glared at Crowley, “Unless you count my snake.” He got up and went over to Crowley, “Naughty boy, what are you doing here?” 

“I had a flatmate who had a snake that’d escape sometimes. He liked to hang around in the shower, and he was good company,” the woman came over for a look as Aziraphale stooped to lift Crowley up. “Can I hold him?”

Crowley hissed, mouth wide open. 

“Hush Crowley, you are not a cat,” said Aziraphale. 

“Sorry?” said the woman, looking up from Crowley’s fangy face. 

“Best not, dear. Sorry. He’s not feeling very friendly.” 

“Have you called him Crowley?” asked the woman curiously, “So you’ve named your pet snake after the man you-”

“Yes!” yelped Aziraphale a little desperately. “You wanted the book, didn’t you, my dear? Let’s just,” and he draped Crowley unceremoniously over his shoulder and swept off to find the book without waiting for an answer. 

“Oh,” said the woman a little uncertainly. “All right. Yes, I suppose I should be getting home.”

Crowley curled smugly about Aziraphale’s neck, but Aziraphale only wrapped the book in brown paper and pressed it along with a slice of cake that Crowley had not seen him wrap into her hands at the door, “See you tomorrow, Rachel. Get home safe. Mind the ice, dear,” Crowley felt the shivery warmth of a safe travels blessing drift toward her. 

Rachel it seemed had felt something too, because she leaned in and kissed Aziraphale high on his surprised cheek, “Thanks again for the book. I’ll take special care of it. You’ve saved my life with this! Or at least my weekend.”

Aziraphale positively giggled, and Crowley bristled, despite his momentary lack of body hair, “Oh don’t mention it, dear. Good night.” 

“Good night, Mr Fell!” and with an ostentatious jingling of the shop door bells, Rachel was gone. 

“Thank you for that,” said Aziraphale crisply when he was alone with Crowley. 

Crowley was already shifting forms as he slid off Aziraphale’s shoulders, “What was  _ that?! _ ” 

“Oh, have I not mentioned Rachel to you?” 

Crowley had rather mistimed his shift and hit the ground before his legs were quite leggy, “She  _ kissed  _ you!” 

“Mm,” said Aziraphale thoughtfully. “That was new. Funny how affection goes in and out of fashion as well as clothes and things. Well not affection per s-”

“Women  _ kiss _ you?!” squawked Crowley from the floor. 

“Oh not very often,” said Aziraphale a little distractedly, drifting toward the back of the shop. “Get off the floor, will you, dearest. Would you like a piece of cake? It’s devils food.” He paused and chuckled, “I didn’t know you’d be here.”

Crowley got up and followed Aziraphale, “Well you should have, because we have a. Erm. We have plans! We’re going to see  _ Maurice _ at the Prince Charles.” 

Aziraphale frowned and cut a slice of cake, “That’s next week. It’s the 27th.”

“Angel, today  _ is _ the 27th!” 

“Is it?” Aziraphale took out his pocket watch and consulted it. 

Crowley laughed, “Did that help?” 

Aziraphale tucked away his pocket watch, “Well it’s barely half six; we have time.”

Crowley rocked on his heels, “I thought you’d want to have dinner first. There’s that new place that does those poached-”

“Oh, I do! Let’s go!”

…

“ _ Mmmm _ ,” Aziraphale sucked his fork and when it was quite clean, set it beside his plate. “Oh that  _ was _ top notch,” he dabbed his mouth with his napkin and belched into it, "Oooh my a little surprise. Scuse me, my dear." 

Crowley watched, hiding his smile behind his wine glass, “Perhaps you’d like a cigarette.”

“I would of course, serpent dearest, though I suspect you're offering without having any on you, which is shocking manners. Miracle cigarettes are never quite the thing you know.” Aziraphale sipped from his own glass, “And anyway I haven’t had one in seventy years, so I won’t.” 

Crowley meant to ask why seventy years ago but what came out was, “So your friends just. Kiss you now?”

Aziraphale raised an eyebrow, “Are you still thinking about that?”

Crowley couldn’t even imagine how he might be expected to not be, “I didn’t even know you. Er. Let alone. That!” 

“Well that bit was new,” Aziraphale finished his wine and lifted the bottle to pour a little more for himself and a little more for Crowley. “It was pleasant but hardly. Remarkable. I can’t think why you should be so fascinated by it.” 

Crowley gulped too much of his wine and swallowed hard but lapsed into a coughing fit anyway. Aziraphale stroked Crowley’s back once gently and the wine vanished from his throat. He coughed a bit more and accepted Aziraphale’s handkerchief to wipe his streaming eyes, “Thanks.” His wine glass had turned into a glass of water in his hand and he sipped from it, “Bossy.”

“All right?” asked Aziraphale sweetly, taking no notice of Crowley’s tone. “Wrong pipe?”

“I didn’t know you had such a. Close friend. I’d’ve thought I’d. Hear about her.”

Aziraphale shrugged, “Her name is Rachel, and she’s doing her master’s thesis on prophecies. She found the shop by accident about six months ago, and she drops in once or twice a fortnight and photographs chapters from books page by page on her phone. We chat. She’s very sweet and not the sort of person who’d interest you at all.”

The only reply that seemed able to present itself to Crowley was,  _ But she  _ kissed  _ you _ , and if Aziraphale had found the kiss unremarkable, then Crowley had best see his way to getting past it. “She’s a bit young for you,” he muttered finally. 

Aziraphale gave him a very stern look, “She’s not too young to sit in my shop and do her homework while I knit and listen to records, dear. I may as well be her grandmother.” 

Crowley tried unsuccessfully to put his fretting away and finally decided he could at least shut up about it. He gestured to the waiter for the bill, “We’d best get ourselves to the Prince Charles, Angel.” 

“Mmm, I was just going to say.” 

…

As it turned out,  _ Maurice  _ is not the sort of film you see to put kissing out of your head. Generally when they went to the cinema together, Crowley liked to watch Aziraphale watch the film. Aziraphale loved stories so much that they seemed to unlock him in a way nothing else did, and his emotions would flicker so openly across his face when he was engaged in a story. It was enchanting. Crowley felt strongly that he couldn’t cope with that particular sort of enchantment at that particular moment, but he felt likewise exposed when he tried to watch the film. 

After Crowley had squirmed in his seat for an hour or so, Aziraphale leaned toward him, “Are you all right, my dear?”

“Fine,” whispered Crowley, affecting nonchalance and then noticing he was jiggling his foot quite hard. 

“Because you look rather as if you may vibrate out of your chair. Are you feeling well?”

“Ahh, I think. I’ll step out a moment and get some air,” Crowley decided, rising from his seat. Aziraphale followed him right out onto the pavement where Crowley gulped cool, smelly, city street air and tried not to pace. 

Aziraphale looked round discreetly, then miracled Crowley a glass of water and watched him drink it down altogether. Crowley hadn’t especially wanted the water, but it was so nice and cool and refreshing. He actually felt a little better once he’d finished it. 

Crowley held the empty glass out to Aziraphale, “Thanks, Angel. Want this back?”

Aziraphale waved an impatient hand to banish the glass from existence, “Happy to help, my dear. Feeling better?”

“A bit,” Crowley ruffled his hair. 

“Perhaps you’d get a little further along in that if you just tell me what’s on your mind, dearest.” 

“Right,” Crowley squared his shoulders and looked at Aziraphale, then looked past Aziraphale over his shoulder because his eyes were green in the yellow-y light of a nearby streetlamp, and it was far too much to cope with at such a moment. “I. Erm. Well. The thing is.” He paused, “I think my mind is sort of like a party popper at the moment and if we pull, it’ll bang and fling a load of disappointing fluffy stuff about.”

Aziraphale nodded as if that had been a remotely sensible thing to say, “I see. Would you like to walk for a bit, then? Sometimes that helps.” And he offered Crowley his elbow. Crowley, feeling very good about that party popper metaphor, took the proffered arm and they sauntered off. 

They ambled aimlessly for a time, Aziraphale occasionally drumming his fingers gently on the back of Crowley’s hand. They didn’t speak much, Crowley knowing that all he could get out at the moment was incongruent consonants and wondering if it was his imagination that Aziraphale seemed rather dreamy. 

Thoughtful perhaps was a better word. 

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Aziraphale murmured presently, “Whatever you’re feeling. If you want to tell me, you can. You  _ are _ my side, and. I think I. I suspect I can help. Won’t you let me?” 

Crowley wished more of his face were hidden behind his shades; he felt certain he was blazing crimson. “It’s stupid,” it came out apologetic. “It’s nothing. It’ll pass.” Then at Aziraphale’s gently incredulous expression, “It isn’t a thing you say, Angel! It’s. It. It’s too much.” 

Aziraphale stopped short and turned to Crowley, squaring his shoulders decisively, “Crowley dearest, would you like to kiss me?” 

Crowley gaped, “Nngllpk!”

“You may,” Aziraphale raised his chin invitingly and stepped a bit closer, “If you’d like.” 

Crowley filled with baffled longing, and he bit down on his own lower lip as though he could stop himself wanting with a little spike of pain, and he didn’t exactly mean to speak and what spilled out when he did was certainly unbidden, “But. But  _ why?! _ I’m.  _ Stupid _ and. Why should you. I’m stupid and jealous and not even really that she kissed you, because she really didn’t do it the way I erm. But you. You’ve been. Stockpiling these little domestic intimacies with someone and never even mentioned her name to me. I don’t know why I. Ergh!” Crowley stamped his foot and spun on the spot, blinking his stinging eyes hard, “I’m sorry!”

Aziraphale reached and landed a steadying hand on his elbow, “Crowley dear, do you feel frightened?” He didn’t look alarmed nor even surprised. 

Crowley nodded. 

“Look around. Are you in danger?” 

Crowley looked down the road and briefly watched a taxi with a rather dodgy understanding of traffic codes. “No,” he said cautiously. “I don’t think so.”

“No,” agreed Aziraphale. “I think this is mainly chemical, but we can still sort it out. Yours or mine?”

“What? Er. Yours.” 

“All right dear, hold onto me,” and Aziraphale stepped quite close to Crowley and tucked both of Crowley’s hands through the crook of his elbow. With a little swoop of surprise and the warm, pleasant shiver that always passed through him when he sensed Aziraphale’s miracles, Crowley found that they were standing in the bookshop. 

He stepped back from Aziraphale and swayed a little on the spot, “Oof.” 

“All right, Crowley?” said Aziraphale bracingly. “I tend to prefer to have my panic attacks in private.” 

“Not an attack,” said Crowley weakly. “More of a. Erm.”

“Panic kerfuffle,” supplied Aziraphale, miracling him a chair. “Would you like some cocoa?” 

Crowley sat down in the chair, “Easy on the marshmallows.” 

Aziraphale tucked a mug of cocoa into his hands almost at once, “The marshmallows are the best part.” 

“But then I can’t get at the cocoa,” said Crowley, tipping the mug to his mouth and finding he could get at the cocoa just fine. “You make really nice cocoa.”

Aziraphale chuckled, “Not if I try and use a saucepan, my dear, I assure you. Do you feel better?”

“Yeah, actually.” Crowley considered, “Do you always offer people chocolate when they’re upset?”

Aziraphale miracled himself a chair, “It helps.”

“Did you nick that off Harry Potter?” 

Aziraphale pretended not to hear, “I think I’ll have some also.” And he miracled his own cup and they sipped quietly together for a while. 

“Crowley, my dear?” ventured Aziraphale presently. 

“Yes, Angel?”

“Would you like to try sorting it out again? Are you up for it?” 

Crowley sighed and pocketed his shades, “Would you believe me if I said I’m not really upset? Or at least. It’s more like. Short-circuiting. She didn’t doubt that you’d. She just. Did it. And it was fine! Pleasant and easy! Why can’t I. You know?”

Aziraphale swirled his cocoa mug and looked into it like a soothsayer about to read tea leaves, “It’s difficult. When you’re not meant to. When you’re forbidden to see what you know you might find. It’s difficult to. Look. You see?” Aziraphale set his cocoa on a side table that hadn’t been there a moment ago and reached out to take Crowley’s hand, “And anyway it isn’t the same, my dear. Is it? A friendly impulse as opposed to. Well,” Aziraphale went deliciously pink, and somehow that did it.

Crowley put down his cocoa also, “Could I. Try it now?” 

Aziraphale dragged his chair a little ways forward and leaned toward Crowley, “Please!” 

So Crowley kissed him. 

Aziraphale was marvellously flushed and a little breathless when they drew apart, “There now. What do you think?” 

Crowley was rather breathless himself. It was only touching. It oughtn't've put anything right, not really. But it did, “I think I should try again.”

“Help yourself, then,” Aziraphale shut his eyes. And Crowley did try again. And as he’d got so beautifully underway, he found it quite easy to carry on and on and on.


End file.
